After being disqualified from the first race on Thursday for cutting the spinnaker of another boat, spirits were very low Friday morning. No one wanted to go out. Even Bernie showed up half an hour later than he told us to arrive. But we did go out and sailed a bit more conservatively than earlier in the week since we were no longer in the running, and had our second best day racing as a result. We finished third in our class today, after having finished second on Sunday, and as low as seventh on the other days. Had only one minor complication as one of the spinnaker sheets was connected wrong, but we quickly resolved the problem and had a good race.

Added to my bruises and injuries again – my backside looks like a photo out of a medical magazine with two bruises about 3 inches in diameter each, as well as many more resembling a shotgun blast sprayed over my butt and lower back. It’s hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in at night as every turn or move touches something that hurts. The winds were down slightly at the start of the race so we used a different headsail than on the previous days; this meant that the jib sheet was run through a block further out and forward of the other one. The result was that every time the jib came across the bow during a tack the sheet flung about wildly until the sail filled with air. My sunglasses were pretty much worthless for seeing through after the first few minutes due to the sea spray and I had contemplated taking them off, but on one of the early tacks the jib sheet came over and smacked me square across the glasses, so I decided to leave them on. Two tacks later, it hit me right in the mouth. I held my arm up over my head on every tack after that.

Friday’s course was up and back several times, with longer tacks (translation: easier on the crew due to less climbing back and forth across the boat) and 3 spinnaker legs. After the race Peter told me, “nice packing, not one twist!” (I was in charge of packing the spinnaker after each run.) It was very nice to hear that, as both George and I feel very unappreciated on that boat. After all the time we’ve been sailing with them we are still made to feel like outsiders. We’d really like to find another boat to sail on and probably would switch if we do.

Kristin and Melody left this morning to go back to Dominica and although it was very nice having them here, it feels good to have the place to my self again and not have to worry about keeping them fed and entertained. My water pump went out on Thursday (the day before they arrived) and it wasn’t repaired until yesterday so we’ve been hauling water in buckets all weekend. They must have stirred up something from the tanks during the repair because the water was running black when it came back on and it wasn’t clear enough to bathe with until this morning. I’ve always boiled my drinking water, but after seeing that, you can be certain that I will be even more diligent about it from now on! We were joking about what kind of a hostess I was – making them bathe from buckets with cold water, climb up a hill to get to my house, and sleep on the floor! Still, I think they enjoyed themselves and Melody invited me to stay with her when we come to Dominica in September. Mid-service training is held in Dominica and I plan to stay a few extra days to visit. (I also just learned that Close-of-Service is held in Grenada, so along with Antigua and St. Lucia, that makes 4 different islands that I get to visit on the Peace Corps’ tab.)

One of our female volunteers was brutally beaten and raped last week after the Sailing Week festivities down at Jolly Harbor. The others are understandably upset and Washington sent a psychologist down to talk with everyone and offer counseling. Two of our new volunteers resigned today and while this was not the only reason, I'm sure it was what pushed them over the edge. It wouldn't surprise me if a few more left as well. People feel anger, sadness, concern, fear... It is not easy being here. Peace Corps stresses "integration" but in this environment, it’s really not that simple. We don’t live in mud huts where our every day work is part of the community’s survival. We live in the “suburbs”, where people get up in the morning, get in their cars and drive off to work and school, then come home to their families. We don’t have transportation to get involved in whatever activities there might be in the evenings. While a few volunteers are successful in making friends and finding social activities within their communities, most do not. We are isolated, and, outside of our small circles of work and neighbors, assumed to be tourists. I think most volunteers in the Eastern Caribbean wonder at some point, what we’re doing here. Are we making any significant contribution? Does the Peace Corps really belong in the EC at all? Too many times it seems that the job that we’re doing is not replacing a local who could be doing the same work only because they don’t have the money to hire someone. I stay only because I have to know - why I’m here, what I can accomplish, what this will lead to. I can’t leave to a lifetime of questioning and what if’s.

Another camping trip was planned for this past weekend to Rendezvous Bay. This time George and I elected to hike in from Carlisle Bay and just stay for the day and not spend the night. George’s previous fears of being eaten alive by sand fleas turned out to be pretty accurate, and the barbeque apparently wasn’t very good either, so it was probably best that we left when we did. Instead we had a nice swim in the bay, ate our lunches, and left shortly after everyone else arrived.

Getting there, however, was a real adventure. What should have been a fairly easy one-hour hike took 4 times as long. Between the heat and my degraded level of fitness, this was certainly the most difficult hike that I’ve done in recent memory. The uphill parts were quite steep and somewhat rugged and there was very little shade. The downhill parts were just as steep, and although not as taxing, a layer of loose dirt on the surface necessitated that you employ a technique of swinging from tree to tree, sort of Tarzan style, to get down the trail. This required a bit of concentration and a look-before-you-grab approach as sometimes the “trees” were actually cactus.

The extra hiking time was not due to being lost - we were never “lost” – we always knew where we were; from the various vantage points along the trail you could see where we had come from and where we wanted to go. The problem was that at some point, we started getting further and further away from our destination and eventually crossed back over the ridge that we had labored to climb to see Carlisle Bay and the same valley that we had started in (in other words, if we kept walking on that path we would have walked in a circle!) We were on a clearly marked trail, with yellow dots painted on rocks and trees set very close together, so it was hard to go astray. All fine, except that we should have been on the trail with the red dots. With Rendezvous Bay in sight, but a long ways off and no obvious way to get there other than hike 2 hours back to where the yellow and red trails split, we decided to call Jim and let him know that we weren’t going to make it so no one would worry about us.

A little disappointed, we set off back down the yellow trail, heading towards Wallings and Fig Tree Drive, where we had surmised we would end up. Eventually we crossed an unmarked trail that backtracked and headed downhill from the one we were on. It may have only been a goat trail, but it was heading towards the bay, so we decided to follow it for a short ways to see where it led. The trail improved and, although still quite a distance from the shore, we could see that it led downhill until it reached the valley floor, then was flat all the way to Rendezvous Bay. About an hour later we were there. Tired. Hot. And hungry. Swim first, then eat, then relax on the beach until the rest of the group started to arrive. We were glad to finally have made it; we had worked too hard to not be rewarded with a swim. Afterwards we planned to take a different route out, on a jeep trail leading to Falmouth. We’d taken that road before the last time we were here so we knew there would be no surprises, and we waited until the sun dropped behind the hills before leaving, so the temperature was bearable. Overall it was a good but exhausting day. Luckily George had just enough energy left to prepare pizzas for dinner; if it had been left up to me we would have eaten cold cereal!

Antiguans melt in the rain. It’s a fact, and one that I didn’t truly appreciate until tonight when a storm forced the cancellation of an excruciatingly loud revival that has been going on every night for the past week and a half in a tent setup in the field below my house. Hallelujah!

It makes you sick, really, the treatment of dogs here. Sometimes you just want to cry. The neighbors below me have new puppies and yesterday some boys were throwing the puppies together over and over, to get them to fight. I could hear the pups yelping, crying out. The boys were relentless; it seemed like it went on for hours. Then this morning one of the guys was at it again. This type of torture is quite intentional; I think they’re teaching them to fight, to make them mean so they’ll be good guard dogs. Either that or they’re just perverse and they’re doing it for entertainment. I’ve seen this exact behavior a number of times before, with kids as well as teen and adult males and older dogs. Once, while down at the beach, I saw a guy with a dog of his own get fed up and yell at some others to stop fighting their dogs, then he took off. I think most of the people here don’t deserve to own dogs because they really don’t have a clue about how to treat them properly.

It’s been raining all day, sometimes quite hard. I heard whimpering downstairs and looked out to see Mom, tied to her tree and soaked to the bone, trying desperately to find some way to get out of the rain. The roof of her doghouse was off, so it offered no protection at all. It didn’t appear that anyone else was home, not that they would have done anything even if they were, so I put on my raincoat and flip-flops and headed down to the yard below. Poor Mom was a muddy mess, just like the ground below her paws. From here I could see that not only was the roof off her house, but there was no floor either, so it was just as wet and muddy as the rest. I found a few boards to set over the top, and another for the floor, and in she went, quite grateful I could tell.

Farley, now tied to another tree on the side of the house, was huddled under his tree, muddy and soaked as well. He shook with excitement when he saw me, or maybe from the cold, both I think because his tail was wagging. Anyhow, I found a few more boards and propped them up along the side of the garage and made a floor of boards and a cardboard box that I found in the garage. He couldn’t reach it because his leash was wrapped around the tree, so I untangled him and tried to get him to go into his new house. He went in for a few moments, and then I saw that with his leash untangled he could get just inside the garage. The cement was wet, but at least he was out of the mud and he seemed to prefer that. As I started to leave he gave me a playbow of thanks – what a trooper, chained up, soaked and muddy from the rain and still was able to show his appreciation. I should mention how rare this is – I’ve never seen him do that to a human before. My neighbor’s son was speechless when he saw Farley take a treat from my hand a few weeks ago because he is normally so unfriendly to people. Of course I had the “advantage” that he was starving and he’s gotten biscuits and food from me in the past.

There’s a new puppy in our yard now, “Scroungy” I call him, because that’s what he is. Filthy, covered with fleas and burrs, with ticks in his ears. He seems to have a slight birth defect as one of his eyes is not opened as wide as the other. There were 3 pups originally; the other 2 disappeared after only a few weeks. Died I would imagine as Mom is so emaciated that I’m sure she had no milk for them. I started feeding her and Farley because I couldn’t stand to watch them being systematically starved, but I don’t generate enough leftovers to keep them fed.

Anyhow, other than being neglected and weaned far too early, Scroungy is a typical playful pup. He just loves me and comes running up the stairs, which are nearly as tall as he is, when I’m out back hanging laundry. He likes to bite at my toes, although I’m attempting to train him out of that habit and he’ll roll over on his back so I can rub his belly. I’ve been tempted to bathe him, but he really is not my responsibility and I have to draw the line somewhere. So he follows me up the stairs to my front door, but knows that he can’t come in and will turn and run back home when I tell him no.

I don’t know if I’m making a difference in the lives of any of the people, but at least while I’m here, I’m making a difference in the lives of a few of the dogs.

I got to do 4 scuba dives this weekend. Jonathan was taking out a new Open Water student and asked if any of us would like to tag along and since Jim, Jake, and Karen were either busy or off-island, George and I took him up on the offer. On the first day we did two dives in an area where we had gone during George’s training dives called North Welk rock. While Jonathan worked with his student, George and I took off to explore the reef. This was George’s first dive since getting certified and, speaking from my years of Divemaster experience, he did quite well - he’s taken to the water very naturally. Water temperature was warm, in the low 80’s, but the visibility here is not what I had expected, maybe 20 feet on Saturday and 30 on Sunday – probably because we’re diving on the northern, Atlantic side of the island which is more exposed. I haven’t been diving yet on the south side, so I don’t know if that’s any better, but snorkeling near my home is never very clear either.

The reef was quite pretty with lots of coral (some huge brain coral) and sea fans. No kelp of course, but we did see a small (2-3 ft) shark inside of a fish trap. George had purchased an underwater disposable camera so we took a few photos as we navigated around the reef. On Sunday Jonathan’s student cancelled (bad sunburn from the day before), so it was just the three of us. There was a spot that he’s been wanting to try out, but didn’t want to take students there having never dove there before, so this was the perfect opportunity. It was in a little deeper water (50 ft) in Bird Island channel and quite beautiful. Lots of coral again, tropical fish, and we saw an adult moray eel on the first dive and a baby eel on the second. I think I need to either bring down my dive computer from home or purchase another one; diving from a watch and dive tables is somewhat annoying. Saturday it wasn’t really an issue because we were so shallow we just dove til George ran low on air, but because of the deeper depths on Sunday we had to watch the clock. Still it was a great weekend and lots of fun. It felt really good to be underwater again. I wish I could find a way to dive more while I’m here.

I’ve booked my vacation home for August and cannot wait! Other than raiding my storage room I’m really looking forward to seeing friends and family and just generally being where things are, well, what I’m used to. Anyone who has ever lived in a foreign country I’m sure can relate to what I’m saying. People in different cultures do everyday things differently, they think differently, and they act differently. Sometimes you just want to spend some time where the thoughts and actions, if not the same as yours, at least are recognizable and familiar. Sometimes you just would like to be one of the crowd and not stand out every time you walk outside of your own 4 walls. I’m curious how I will react when I get there – I think some of the things that I thought were trivial before will be even more so now, like the superficial things that some people think are important - hopefully I'll be able to practice tolerance. Other things I hope I will have more of an appreciation of and place even more priority on, like honesty and ethics and kindness.

In a few days it will be 10 months that I’ve been in the Caribbean, and although I can say I live here, it is not my home. Maybe if I had the means to live at the same level that I had back home and come and go as I wished, things would be different. But even beyond that, making friends outside of the Peace Corps has been difficult. I want to go home so badly but I don’t want to give up yet, and that’s what I feel I’d be doing. I hope a few weeks home will pacify me and not make it worse so that I cry all the way back on the plane!